Hanoi - Day 9 & 10

(12/31/09-1/2/10)

The plane landed fine in Hanoi, though I could smell that someone had gotten sick two seats behind me just before landing. The driver from the hostel was 20 minutes late picking me up, but at least he showed up. It was a bit cooler in Hanoi at 17C instead of the 25-30C it had been in Saigon.

The traffic was crazy here as well, and I had been thinking about getting a motorbike in Hanoi, but I saw two people fall off their bikes in the space of 15 minutes and they didn't even get hit. The hostel is near a rather busy part of town, so I checked in and then headed out to explore. The buildings here are really strange. It seems like when they put up buildings, they know that another building will be put practically touching the old one, so the fronts are rather ornate and finished well, but the sides are often just plain concrete without even a layer of paint.


There are some interesting little side restaurants and shops on the street where my hostel is, one of the most interesting was the pho place on the corner that had chicken heads on display. They did make a tasty meal, though.





I got a ticket for the 3:30 water puppet show, shopped around a bit to find some things for Logan, and then found a cafe near the theater to get a cup of coffee. The cafe overlooked the lake, which made for interesting people watching. The coffee in Vietnam is similar to that in Cambodia - they use sweetened condensed milk, so there's never a reason to add more sugar. It's almost too sweet for my taste, but the condensed milk makes it thicker and creamier, which is a nice texture.




There were a lot of people in the plaza near the theater. It seemed that part of the reason was there was a flower exhibition of sorts, which was less than impressive, as well as a large sign announcing the 1000th anniversary of Hanoi in 283 days.


The water puppet performance was very interesting. I had assumed that it would be something similar to marionettes, but it was far from it. The puppets were on long wooden poles that were attached to the bottoms. The puppeteers were behind a curtain in the water, and moved the puppets all around the pool of water. There were several stories told with the puppets. I couldn't understand any of the words or songs, but there was a little guide that was provided in English that gave a synopsis of each section.


At the very end they lifted the curtain so you could see how the puppets were moved, and then the puppeteers took a bow. It was a very entertaining show, and well worth the ticket price.



After I left the theater, I decided to do a walking tour of Hanoi. I had read that Hanoi and Saigon were high crime areas, so I was especially on my guard. I made it a point to look at my guide book only when absolutely necessary, and when I did it was away from intersections and off the road so that most people wouldn't notice me. I memorize street names and directions so that I would have to look at it less often, and I didn't walk slowly but with purpose to make it seem like I knew exactly where I was going.



The tour started off fine, and I was seeing some interesting side streets, though the actual destinations were less than impressive. For example, this lovely yellow building was one of the temples on the tour.



I got near the gate at the north end of the city, and I started walking onto smaller and smaller side streets. I thought some guy was following me, but I wasn't sure. About a minute later I turned my head around and he was right behind me with his hand on the outside of my backpack, and the small pocket was open. My heart started pounding as I turned all the way around and asked him repeatedly what he was doing and why my bag was open. He tried to hid his hand, so I grabbed it to see if there was something in his fist that he had taken from my bag, but there was nothing, and I didn't see anything in his pockets. I knew nothing important was in my front pocket except my notebook journal. The only thing he said in English was "Not me", so I finally let him go, after warning him never to come near me again.

I was fine while I was talking to him, kept a level head and didn't freak out. But as soon as he walked off, I could feel the adrenaline so I made a beeline back to my hostel. I was quite annoyed at the people who had been on the street that I had seen in my peripheral vision who had quite obviously witnessed this guy attempt to steal from me, and had done absolutely nothing to stop him or to help me.

Once I got back to the hostel, I felt much better, but I decided I wasn't going to venture out on my own again. I hung around the hostel where people were starting to get ready for that night, which was New Year's Eve. We were told there was going to be a party on the roof of the hostel, and that in order to attend we had to wear a mask. The hostel provided supplies and we had to make our own mask. So I grabbed a drink and set about making a pretty cool mask out of paper and paint and rubber bands, which I still have hanging in my apartment.



The party was crowded but fun. Around 9pm we moved to another bar wearing bright sombreros, but that was crowded too, so when I heard a couple say they were heading back to the hostel, I asked if I could go with them (since I wasn't ABOUT to walk by myself at night). We had dinner at the chicken-head place, and then I headed upstairs to go to sleep. I knew it was New Year's Eve, but I'd celebrated enough, I was tired, and I had to be up early the next day for our tour of Halong Bay.

Saigon - Day 5 & 6

(12/27/09-12/28/09)

So I made it to my hostel just fine, as I had arranged for a driver pick me up from the airport. The drive was vaguely interesting, and I think the driver thought it was funny when I took my first picture of a sign on the side of the road. To bad I never got a chance to try ostrich.


I was put in a room across the street from the main hostel. I was surprised at first, but the buildings in the city are so ram-packed together, that it shouldn't be a surprise when you have to have multiple locations to support your clientele. The room was a bit more upscale than my last one - I had a tv in the room and internet outside the room that was supposedly turned off at 11pm. After I'd gotten changed and showered (I was still in the same clothes that I had been crawling over Cambodian temples in earlier that day), I went exploring. I took a brief look at my map, and then just went for a nice stroll around, heading in the general direction of Ben Thanh Market.


I found it after wandering for about half an hour, and proceeded to go shopping for my cousin. I can see how it would be a rather daunting place for a foreigner to go, but there are several markets like it in South Korea, so I wasn't as overwhelmed as I could have been. It was pretty crowded, and most of the stalls are so close to each other that you have to turn sideways just to walk in between the shops. I don't usually buy things when I travel, even for myself (my photos make the best souvenirs), so I don't really know how other 'travel shoppers' would feel about this place, but it seemed to have just about anything that a tourist could want, from traditional clothes, toys, pictures, knock off hand bags, and dried/fresh/pickled fruit. Not only that, but most of it was incredibly cheap; the traditional outfits I bought for Logan were less than $10 (compared with traditional Korean hanbok, which will set you back a few hundred).

After picking up a few things, I headed back to the hostel. The market closes at sundown, so it was dark when I headed back to the hostel. A side note about Saigon, the traffic here is unbelievable. Just about everyone is on scooters or motorbikes, though there is a fair amount of car and bus traffic, too. In some places there are separate lanes just for the motos. The only law that seems to be enforced is the helmet law, and it's only for people over the age of 3 (and yes, I saw toddlers on motos with no helmet). The trick to crossing any street is to wait until it seems like there will be a break (however slight) in the oncoming traffic. Then you walk across, at a slow and steady pace. The motos will not stop for you, they will simply calculate your path and swerve around you. If you try to run across, you will almost certainly be hit. If you wait until there are no oncoming bikes, you'll be rooted to the same spot for a month. (Mom- if you ever visit Saigon, be prepared never to leave a 1 block radius).


I'd gotten an email the day before from the tour group about picking me up on the morning of the 27th to go for the Mekong Delta trip. The problem was, of course, that I was still in Cambodia on the morning of the 27th, and I had booked the trip to begin on the 29th. I sent them a reply email from Cambodia, but I wanted to check with them and see if I could go a day early on the boat tour, since I had seen a bit of Saigon and was anxious to get out of the city. I tried to contact the tour company through the hostel, but things were getting lost in translation, and it took a while to even figure out that I was talking to the head office of the hotel, and not the tour group. It turned out that the tour company's office was right around the corner, so I went in person. I talked to the owner (I think), and got everything confirmed and paid for for the original date. (I struck up a conversation with her because she was wearing a University of Florida shirt, and I was intensely curious if she had any idea what it meant.) I thought about going out for a drink and trying to meet some people, but I was really tired, so I decided to save my energy for a proper self-guided walking tour of the city the next day.

I had breakfast at the hotel around 8 and headed out. I used the Lonely Planet walking tour as a starting point, and set about wandering through the city. The city's pretty big, and much more than a normal person could walk in a day. I started out at the Ho Chi Minh museum, which was vaguely interesting.


The displays seemed a bit old and static, but still had some cultural points. Probably the most interesting thing I saw wasn't even in the museum. I was standing on the balcony overlooking the street below, trying to get a picture of the Vietnamese flag that was flying from the railing (I was waiting for the wind to pick it up a bit, but it wasn't cooperating at first).

As I was waiting, I heard a screeching sound, followed by a metallic thump. I looked down to see a guy picking up his moto from the street, as other riders simply drove around him. I'm not sure if he just fell off his bike, or if he hit something (or something hit him), but it further solidified my resolve NOT to ride a bike in Saigon. I'd enjoyed my motorbike trip in Cambodia, I didn't want to ruin it with an accident (And I know one person personally who had a motorbike accident, and another through a friend who's been permanently brain damaged as a result, both in Vietnam).


After that museum, I tried to walk toward the War Remnants Museum, but ended up at the Reunification Palace first. In this general area of the city, there are old propaganda posters on just about every corner.



The Palace was nice, but the best part was the fresh coconut I had afterwards. They pull it out of the fridge, cut off the top, stick in a straw, and hand it to you. Yum!



After enjoying the coconut, I headed to the War Remnants Museum. Interesting place, but definitely a slant on the 'truth'.


Some of the pictures were horrifying, others were just sad. There was even a section outside that was set up to look like one of the tiger cage prisons.



I figured three museums was enough for one morning, so I just started meandering back towards my hostel. I stopped at an outdoor market, but it was too similar to a Korean one (i.e. a market I would never buy something from). Had some Pho Bo for lunch, and made my way back to the Ben Thanh market. I tried asking a moto driver about going to one of the remote pagodas, but the initial price was about $10 an hour, which after Cambodia ($15 from dawn till after dusk), seemed exorbitant. They tried to negotiate with me, and offered me less than half that, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk on one of those motos.



Most of the cafes and restaurants have tables facing the street, which makes for perfect people watching. For every car I saw, there were about 100 motos, 3 walking vendors (selling sunglasses, photocopied novels and travel books with realistic bindings, lighters, and even chicken heads), 5 foreigners, 10 locals, and half a cyclo (a bike with a seat on the back - there weren't many of these).


I sat at a cafe for a few hours just people watching, and then headed to a nearby park, where it seemed they were having some sort of cultural festival. There were little stages set up, with sets meant to look like different parts of the world. On each stage were performers that each did their own country's style of performance, though it got annoying when stages opposite each other were performing at the same time - at top volume.


The park was rather big, with a large pond that had boats on it that seemed to be part of a performance. I was fascinated by the bats that were flying around the pond more than anything else.

After wandering around the festival for a few hours, I headed home to get some sleep so I'd be ready for my trip to the Mekong Delta the next day.